Semis – New All-Time Highs…Barely

Oct 15, 2019

Semiconductors outperformed the overall market on Tuesday (10/15), with the Philadelphia Semiconductor index (SOX) rallying 2.22%. The chart below shows the performance of the SOX over the last year, and while you have to squint, Tuesday’s move saw new all-time highs on both a closing and intraday basis. What’s really amazing about this chart is that while the current high represents the third higher high for the SOX since its peak earlier this year in April, the percentage spread between the April high and Tuesday’s high is just 1.6%. Or to put it another way, July’s high was 1.28% above the April high, September’s high was 0.003% above July’s high, and the current high is just 0.3% above the September high. It doesn’t get much more narrow than that!

While the SOX hit a new high Tuesday, only a handful of names in the index managed to do so as well. The chart below shows how far each stock in the index finished the day from its 52-week high. Of the 30 stocks in the index, just seven (less than a quarter) hit new highs. Besides the seven new highs (shaded in the chart below), there are only six other stocks in the SOX that are within 5% of a 52-week high, so more than half of the index’s components are more than 5% below 52-week highs. Stocks that are the furthest below their respective highs are Xilinx (XLNX), Cree (CREE), and NVIDIA (NVDA). All three of these names are still down more than 20% from their respective highs, while other big names in the index like QUALCOMM (QCOM), Advanced Micro (AMD), Intel (INTC), and Broadcom (AVGO) are still down over 10% from 52-week highs. So there’s still room for upside in the index if these big names can play more catch up.

The table below lists each of the 30 stocks comprising the SOX along with their YTD change through 10/15. So far this year, the average YTD performance of the stocks in the SOX is a gain of 43%! The top-performing stocks in the index so far have been Teradyne (TER), which has nearly doubled, KLA-Tencor (KLAC), and Lam Research (LRCX). All three are up over 75% YTD. On the downside, there aren’t any, but Semtech (SMTC) is the only stock in the index that’s up less than 10%. Start a two-week free trial to Bespoke Premium to sample our actionable research. If you use this checkout link, you’ll receive a 10% discount on an annual membership if you stick with it past your trial period.